Kamrul opens his eyes and looks out the window. It is still dark outside. He gets up and goes outside his house.

Kamrul washes his face with the water from the nearest pond. He breaks a branch from a nearby neem tree, whose branches are thin and good for teeth, and begins to clean his teeth. He is wearing just a lungi, the traditional Bangladeshi skirt for a male. He prepares himself for the hard day ahead of him. Kamrul, the father of Compassion-registered* child Mukta, is a cycle van puller.

Kamrul reaches the garage near his house and gets the key to the lock of the van from the owner. The cycle van is a pedal-powered three-wheeler which can be used for carrying people or stuffs. A seat for the driver is at the front just behind the handle like a regular cycle. There is space for carrying people or goods at the back of the cycle van.

Cycle vans are an important part of transportation in the village areas of Bangladesh, as well as cities. It provides the daily wages for more than 100,000 people all over the country.

In cities, cycle vans are available near the furniture stores and market places to carry goods and furniture. There are more than 15,000 cycle vans in the capital city of Dhaka.

In the village areas, where Compassion-assisted child development centers are located, the cycle vans are essential for getting around. They are the only vehicle available to carry goods and people.

Kamrul earns 60-70 taka ($0.87 – $1.01) every day. Actually, he earns about 170-180 taka ($2.46 – $2.61) per day, but he has to pay the owner of the cycle van to use it. Kamrul wishes that he will have his own van one day.

He gets on the cycle van and starts to pedal like on a normal cycle. He reaches the nearest bazaar at Kotalipara. The buses from Dhaka stop here and drop people off, so it is possible for him to have some passengers.

30 to 40 minutes later, the first bus from Dhaka reaches Kotalipara, and Kamrul gets five passengers who want to go to Suagram. They agree to pay 10 taka ($0.14) each for the travel.

Suagram is five kilometers away; Kamrul starts his first trip of the day. Though he is strong enough, carrying five adult people for five kilometer is a hard job. He takes 40 minutes to reach the destination and earns his well deserved “50 bucks” ($0.72).

After a few minutes rest, he starts his journey back to Kotalipara. This time he is lucky enough to get a single passenger from Suagram who agrees to pay him 20 taka ($0.29) – to carry him and his goods to Kotalipara. On other days he has to return to Kotalipara with an empty van.

Kamrul’s passenger is not gentle; he makes Kamrul go an extra kilometer but doesn’t want to pay extra money. Kamrul argues with him but the cycle van puller and rickshaw puller are treated as the lower class in Bangladesh. The passenger pays only 2 taka ($0.03) more.

Kamrul is hurt by this, but what can he do? He is uneducated and realizes that there is no place for those people who can’t read or write. He wishes that his daughter, Mukta, and his son, Masoom, will be highly educated and that no one will dare to treat them this way.

Up to noon he doesn’t get any more passengers to carry. He gets hungry since he didn’t have breakfast. He starts to count the money he has earned today. 72 taka ($1.04). That’s all.

Kamrul buys a bit of bread for three taka ($0.04) and a cup of tea for two taka ($0.03). He has his lunch in front of the shop.

While eating he looks at his van; it is colored on the back side, which is used as the carrier. He made this colorful design by himself. A rope is hanging under the seat; it is used when he has to carry big stuffs. There is also a lantern under the seat that is useful at night. He always keeps a towel, called a gamcha in Bengali, in front of the handles to clean his sweat off. This is how he provides food for his family.

He gets another two trips at evening and earns 80 taka ($1.16) more. At 7 p.m. Kamrul meets the Compassion child development center manager at the market, who is buying rice for the center children.

Kamrul greets him and says, “Sir! Can I take you to the center?”

The project manager agrees; Kamrul lights the small lantern, called a haricane, and hangs it under the cycle van. He carries the manager to the center at Suagram, happy that he can help.

Kamrul is not ready to take money for his service, but the manager insists and gives him 50 taka ($0.72).

Kamrul returns to Kotalipara again but without any passengers.

He has 197 taka ($2.86) in his pocket. He earned 202 taka ($2.93) and spent five taka ($0.07) at lunch. He separates 120 taka ($1.74) for the owner of the cycle van and with the remaining 77 taka ($1.12) he buys rice, oil, a small fish and some vegetables for his family.

Kamrul returns the van to the owner’s garage and heads home. Mukta comes to him running with a big smile. He grabs his little daughter and takes her on his shoulder. He gives the stuffs to his wife and asks her how her day was.

The family doesn’t have electricity at home so they put on haricane lamps. Kamrul goes to the pond and takes a bath. When he gets inside the house he finds his daughter studying in the light of the lamp; this makes him happy.

Kamrul made a partition inside the house with an old metal sheet. On both sides they have two beds. He also made two shelves to keep pillows and bottles of oil, medicines and boxes. There are two pictures on the bamboo wall. One is of two little children wearing traditional dresses, and the other is of Kamrul’s daughter and son. His wife, Rehana, cooks outside the house, but they keep all the cooking stuffs inside. They have a common latrine just behind their house.

Rehana completes her cooking and calls the family for dinner. Kamrul carries his son in, and they sit on the ground. Mukta has already completed her studies and joins them.

After dinner they go to sleep. Kamrul and his wife hang the mosquito net over their bed to keep them safe from bites. Kamrul is thinking of the whole day and is unhappy with the behavior of the rude passenger. But the generosity of the Compassion manager refreshes his mood. He is praying for his children that they will be highly educated and successful in life.

And how much $US would his own van cost? If this were my sponsored child I would want to know about this need – the kids never ask for anything, of course, and I’m always wondering if there’s some need they have that I could easily fulfill if only I knew about it… is there some way that Compassion could start including this type of info about our kids in a way that doesn’t make people feel like they’re being asked for more and more? Make it as an available linkage on the child’s information site online or something only so someone can go in and look if they WANT to but doesn’t feel pressured?

Wow. What an amazing story. Again, I’m reminded how much we take for granted. I’m so thankful that they have Compassion working in their lives.
What a great husband, and father! I wish he could know how proud of him and in awe of him we are.

Is there any way to find out how much a cycle van would cost? Would a family gift cover the amount of something like this? Seems like it would be a huge help to boost the income of a family in Bangladesh.

Thank you so much for sharing this true story in such an excellent way. It really opens my eyes to what life is like in Bangladesh. I have just bought a book about a mission in Bangaldesh; now I will have faces of this precious family to go along with the words I read. God bless Kamrul and his family! Also the project workers and children of this particular area.

Yes, Prairie, I agree! I feel frustrated that I can’t know a little more about what the family really needs. But surely there is a way to let us sponsors know who WANT to know and do something without making anyone feel pressured! Even if we could call and find out, or something!

@Gin,
I suspect a family gift would cover the cost of a cycle van. A bike can be purchased for under $100. A rickshaw/rickshaw van can be purchased with a gift of $200, so says this page on compassion.com.

This is great information to have. While I realize that the gift amount is for the families to spend how they most need it, it is really nice to be able to see what the options may be for our families. Thanks for providing this information!

Chris, I followed your link to the country-specific page for BD, then tried to get the same sort of page for TZ, simply by changing the bd in the URL to tz. That didn’t work, and I couldn’t find any other way to get to the same country-specific page for any other country. What’s the secret?

Hello! I’ll get a figure for how much a cycle van costs in Bangladesh from David.

I know that cycle vans have been given in the past as family gifts in other countries, and it has significantly helped the family’s lifestyle.

Although your sponsored child doesn’t write to you to say WHAT they need, if you give a gift to the child/family, project workers counsel the family and help them decide what to buy that will be most beneficial in the long term, such as an income-generating item like a cycle van.

I enjoyed reading this blog. What an incredible story, as we all have said. People with so little, yet have such love in life. They look at the little things to find thankfulness in, whereas we rarely can say thank you for anything. God bless that man and his family.

I’d also be willing to help in any way if something could happen for this cycle van.

I loved reading this story! It is wonderful to see how much love for his family this man has. How HARD he works for such a small amount of money! (What an eye opener that is!) I agree with Lindy that this story has really inspired me to send family gifts. I also would be happy to join in with the Compassion bloggers to help buy a cycle van for Kamrul. (I could send $10.)

This story was extremely moving for me as well. The author wrote that Kamrul is the father of a Compassion-registered child Mukta. Does this mean that she is not yet sponsored? It would be so awesome if we as bloggers could get this family both a cycle-van and get his daughter sponsored. I will step up and cover Mukta’s sponsorship if she is in fact in need of one. Can someone from Compassion look into this?

I think the money is raised for this special bike. I’m sure there are many other families in Bangladesh, who are in very similar situations.

I like these types of donations, because they really help in a long term type of way. It would be nice to know with each child, if there is some income producing item that can be purchased for the child, that could like double the income or something of the family.

I was just wondering how long it takes for a gift (birthday or family) to get to the families. I know letters take approximately 3 months. I am also sure it varies from country to country. But I can’t help but be curious about how long it takes for my kids to receive gifts once they are given???

Thank you so much! I’ll tell you what, I’d be happy to do that! If you give a gift, then I’ll write you a personal inspirational post! ;-P

Actually, all kidding aside. Giving a personal gift to a family like that can really make a huge difference in a family. One of my children’s family has two cows, each giving about 1 gallon of milk a day. I spoke with a friend of mine, who is a large animal veteranarian. He told me that a cow should be able to give a lot more milk than that. When I was in Bolivia, I checked into it with the project and the child and his family and found out that they had to give the cow cheap food and hence the little bit of milk. Give the cow better food and the cows would increase their milk by 150% or 2 1/2 gallos/cow/day. Thus it was all a matter of getting the cows started on better food and after a while it would increase their profit margin by a lot. It is more of a matter of finding this out, because I didn’t know. That’s why I asked the question first if there was a way to find out for each child if there are some real needs like that, that could be met.

Amanda, I asked the same question to Compassion about special gifts 5 days ago and I was told that it would take about 3 months like the letters.

I was very impatient when I sent my first child gift. I waited for what seemed like forever and received several letters from Eliana with no mention of the gift. I contacted Compassion through the website and was told that it would take about two months for the child to recieve it and then however long it takes to get a thank you letter back from the child. She said they would look into it if I hadn’t heard anything in another month.
Well, without meaning to be pushy, I wrote a few letters mentioning that I hope she received her gift and liked it. I ended up receiving three letters at once from her (all written at different times) mentioning the gift. The first one thanked me and told me what the gift was. The second one told me again what the gift was and thanked me. The third one said something like, “as I wrote to you before…” and told me what the gift was and thanked me again! I felt awful and that has cured me of my impatience. Now I will wait till the cow jumps over the moon before I inquire about a gift again. I will just wait for my letter like a good sponsor!

I think I recall a few posts about letters to children and how they receive them on special letter day… does anyone know how often special letter day occurs? Is it something that is different in each project but maybe is there a “typical” schedule at a minimum?

Also, this is such a great “forum”, Chris (or anyone else from Compassion…), any thought of actually adding a forum link to this site? Seems like in addition to it being a great place for sponsors to chat that it’d be a marketing dream for getting ideas, etc… from a broad perspective of current sponsors. We seem to have a lot of the same people commenting but I am sure that’s just a sample of the readers. Just seems like a neat thing… a thought anyway!

I asked several of the children how often the mail comes. I got several answers. From all of the answers, I came to conclusion that it depends on the project. It probably is also a factor of the distance/accessability from the project to the country office and various factors like that.

On the way back, I know about Bolivia for instance that once a week, they sent all of the letters from the country office to Colorado Springs. My experience has also been that my letters tend to come in spurts. (sp?) I won’t get very many for a month or so and then all of a sudden, I get a lot of letters in one day.

Sorry about that…I didn’t mean to rush! I know you must be covered up with a million things after being gone. Patience is a virtue I will work on (smile). Thank you for all you do for the poor! God Bless!

P.S. If you end up running a little short for the cycle van please let me know.

Could a fund be set up that families could access to buy things like this? It would be great to see more families have the option to generate a better income. Maybe a story a month could be featured on a different occupation and the equipment needed.

I just realized I never thanked Chris and Gin for the link(s) to country-specific information, including gift ideas. So thank you! I promptly bookmarked it, too.

Andrzej, Compassion works with Opportunity International to make small microenterprise loans. I’ve just told you everything I know about it, tho! I’ve wondered whether my oldest sponsored child (approx. 15 years) or her parents would be eligible. With somewhere around 5 or 6 children in the family, I’m sure a good income-producing opportunity would be welcome!

At the bottom of the form, be sure to check the box that says “I have special instructions regarding this donation.”

In the special instruction area you should include, “Donation is for the Bangladeshi cycle van.”

By contributing this way, each of you will receive a tax-deductible receipt.

The cycle van is expected to cost about $150.

If we receive more than what is needed to buy the cycle van, the extra donations will be used by Compassion “where most needed.”

Please make your contributions by 9/30.

Funds are transferred in batches at certain times of the month, not as they arrive. That’s why the deadline is necessary. And this deadline ensures that Kamrul will get the money as quickly as possible.

Once Kamrul gets the cycle van, I’ll get some photos for you.

It’ll probably be early next year before we get any follow-up on this because the funds have to be distributed to Compassion Italy, then to the Bangladesh office, and then to the church partner and Kamrul.

I also want to thank you for helping us with this! It will be so exciting to see the pictures when they come in! Won’t he be so surprised when he hears that people on the other side of the world care about him and his family!!!

Oh, I’m so sorry to be late! My computer has been in the repair shop for a week, so I have just now been able to get on here and discover the progress that has been made. I sent in the donation tonight. Blessings on you, Chris, for coordinating all this!